EARLY 20TH CENTURY: THE DECADES OF AMERICANIZATION

The entry of the United States into the country at the turn of the 19th century saw the Philippines as rather already politically well-organized. This meant that there was already an organized structure of governance existing throughout the country.

Yet, it was during the American occupation in the country starting in 1899 that most provinces were created and the alcaldes were changed into presidentes municipales (municipal presidents).

The first elected municipal president of Balamban was Sixto Milan (1899-1905). During his term the name of the municipality had still retained its original name which was “Balambang” as reflected in the “Report of the Philippine Commission, 151-152”. It was during his term that the Province of Cebu was created. He was one of the delegates who attended the sessions of the Philippine Commission held in Cebu on April 17-18, 1901, which was two weeks after the Filipino president, Emilio Aguinaldo, abdicated his office and five months before the 25^th president of the U.S.A., William McKinley, would be assassinated. One of the prime goals of the Philippine Commission of 1901 was to create the Cebu Provincial Government. The said commission was attended by Commissioners Worcester, Ide, and Moses; Pres. William McKinley; and representatives of 27 pueblos.

This was an excerpt of the minutes on the first day:

            There was a very large representation present from the city of Cebu and adjacent pueblos. Less than half the towns of the island, however, were represented.

            The President stated that the object of the Commission's visit to Cebu was threefold: First, to discover by conference with as many of the delegates of the various towns as could be gotten together whether this island was in such condition that the organization of civil government would assist in bringing about peace; second, if this be answered in the affirmative, to pass a special act making the general provincial act applicable to the province, and, third, having passed the act, to appoint officers to conduct the government. It was pointed out that the province of Cebu was the largest in point of population and resources of any in the archipelago. The President then spoke as follows:

            The condition of the province with respect to peace and pacification, however, is not what it should be. The Commission is advised that there are now ranging through the mountains and interior parts of the island some 200 riflemen, whom the American troops have found difficult to suppress because they evade attack, and information comes but   slowly. The question which the people of Cebu must face is whether they desire 200 men to continue a hopeless struggle, when the insurrection in other islands has collapsed, and by such foolish straggle keep the people of Cebu, an overwhelming majority of whom desire peace, from achieving that desire.

            For years the people of Cebu have enjoyed the reputation of being the most peace-loving, quiet, and prosperous people in the islands. It is not enough, however, that the majority desire peace; they must organize to obtain it. What the Commission is here to learn is whether the people have reached the conclusion that the time has come for them to take definite steps to bring about a termination of this unfavorable condition. The Commission is presented with this difficulty: It is here to establish civil government, the   effect of which will be to take out of the hands of the military the government of this island and make them simply an auxiliary force to help the civil authorities.

            Now, if the people can not, by information and by the pressure which the  majority of the   people can exercise, bring these men out of the mountains and discourage their  attacks, why should the Commission run the risk of intrusting the people, who can not do this, with complete control of the island? Without disparaging the efforts of the military and the work of the Commission in bringing about peace, the truth is that in the other  provinces where the insurrection has collapsed it has ended because the people of those provinces have said it should end. Through the Federal party and other means the leaders of the insurrection have been given to understand that the people do not desire the war to continue. That example is before the people of Cebu. The first question the Commission desires to discuss, therefore, is whether the province of Cebu is ready for provincial government. Will the establishment of civil government give an organization  which will enable the people to express their will that this lawless violence shall cease?

            This, gentlemen, is the unfortunate truth. It is not, perhaps, as grateful to your ears as some other things that might be said but we believe in speaking plainly and showing you what our attitude is and what we believe your attitude should be. We want to have you the benefits of civil government; to give you such individual rights as are enjoyed by every citizen of the United States; but within the sound of arms the law is silent and individual rights will not be observed. Now, assuming that the answers of the presidentes of the towns here represented will satisfactorily establish that civil provincial government will aid in bringing about peace, I propose in a short way to state what this provincial government is.

            My colleagues suggest to me that it might possibly be better to stop the discussion at this point until the delegates can express themselves upon the question whether they desire a civil government. They do not desire to have it understood that this question is settled in advance. It seems better on the whole, however, that I state plainly that the question is not decided, and that whether there shall be a provincial government or not is left in abeyance, and that I give now a brief statement of what the provincial act is. While nothing could be a source of more regret to the Commission than to leave the island of Cebu without a civil organization, the Commission will not hesitate to do so, and to leave to it the unfortunate prominence of being the only province in the archipelago not organized because of its condition, should that coalition demand it.

            The President then explained the provisions of the provincial act and the special bill applying it to the provinces. Reference was also made to the question of the improvement of the port of Cebu. The president stated that provision had been made for the improvement of the harbor of Manila out of the insular funds, and it seemed reasonable that the harbor of Cebu which is second in importance only to that of Manila, should be likewise improved, provided always that the people of Cebu show that they believe in prosperity and are willing to make sacrifices to bring about that  condition without which prosperity is impossible. The oil was then read for a third time and discussion by the public invited.

The next day the first municipal president of Balamban had expressed his ideas on how to achieve peace, prosperity, and contentment of the Filipino people as stated on the excerpt of the minutes on the second day:

            Señor Sixto Milan, presidente of Balambang, thought that the only way to achieve the peace, prosperity, and contentment of the people of the archipelago, and enable them to secure the culture of Europeans and other peoples, was to give them civil government and the means of  education, which would result from peace and order. He also referred to the matter of municipal revenues, stating that the means provided by the municipal code were insufficient and asking that the people continue under General Order No. 40. It would seem that under that order his town had been applying a cedula tax and a forced labor tax. He thought the provision of the municipal code that taxes should be collected by the provincial treasurer a good one, as this prevented the local officers from mixing in the matter.

Later after that, the Cebu provincial government had been established. A governor was elected, sitting as the head of the province, and the pueblos or the towns with their respective municipal presidents, who were mostly the same people with those recognized by the Spanish colonial government as leaders of the pueblo. They were tapped by the occupying American colonial authorities to take various positions in the pueblo’s new leadership under the American colonial government, with American supervision and control. Thus, Balamban was headed then by the fourth capitan del pueblo Sixto Milan, who was later elected as the first municipal president at the beginning of American colonization. His term saw the initial phase of the Americanization of the country which, indeed, had merely continued the local government structure of the Spanish regime.¹

“The reorganization of the local governments which the Americans instituted with the advice of prominent illustrados, strengthened the hold of the landed elites in their communities.” In so doing, there was no sweat on the part of the American forces, and they as well, automatically gained loyal allies among the wealthy Filipinos, according to Renato Constantino in his book The Philippines: A Past Revisited.

Constantino asserted: 

            The technique applied was reminiscent of the Spanish government’s use of the pre-Spanish social structure to win over the chiefs. The Americans retained the administrative units that the Spaniards had created, keeping them as before under the control of a strong central government and without much leeway for initiative in the solutions of local problems. Furthermore, by carefully restricting the privilege of suffrage, the colonial administrators insured the retention of political power by the elite of each locality.

Thus, it is understandable why the propertied families have been able to retain control of the towns across the generations, a situation that prevails in Balamban even to this day.

Constantino continued:

            The establishment of the Philippine Assembly carried out on the national level the same pattern   that had been set for local governments; namely, the substance of power centralized in the governor general and political positions apportioned among the elite. The creation of the Assembly proved to be one of the most effective techniques of winning over members of the traditional elites all over the country.

            The establishment of this body promised in the Cooper Act of 1902 has been hailed by the illustrados (or in the arrogant terminology of the Philippine Commission, the ‘Filipino people of the better class.’) who saw in it a channel for national prominence and influence…Thus while the Americans provided for the mechanics of democracy, they made certain that the victors in the election would come exclusively from the class they were building up for leadership. Although the election campaign was heated, electoral contests were generally confined to propertied and conservative families in the province. The masses were given the illusion of vicarious participation while a new local vanguard of colonialism was being developed.

A similar pattern of control was also found in Balamban. And so, the Philippine Commission did not fail to pursue the enticing promise of self-governance made in 1902 through the Cooper Act. In Balamban, Sixto Milan saw the setting up of the Philippine Assembly with the election of representatives in 1907. Don Sergio Osmeña, Sr. was one of those elected, and eventually became the first Speaker.²

The 1907 election gave more impetus to the Americanization of the Filipinos, for then the culture of legislative politics was neatly infused into the people’s political life. The following is a list of municipal presidents of Balamban during the American regime:

1)    Sixto Milan                            1899-1916

2)    Simeon T. Paulin                 1916-1928

3)    Melquiades R. Gonzalez     1928-1931

4)    Felipe Pilapil                        1931-1934

5)    Dominador C. Sanchez      1934-1941

In 1941, just less than a month before the bombing of the Pearl Harbor, the municipal presidents were replaced by municipal mayors. The following were the mayors under the American regime:³

1)    Santos L. Migallos               1941-1942

2)    Temestocles R. Gonzalez  1942-1943

3)    Adolfo K. Gonzalez             1943-1945

4)    Eufracio Yntig                      1945-1946

The Philippine Assembly that was established under the Cooper Act of 1902 was formed in the 1907 elections. It was the political structure that was to play the role of legislative body to the Philippine Commission. Since the voters for the Assembly were limited to male Filipinos, at least “21 years old, had resided six months in their districts, and either had held office prior to August 13, 1898 or owned real property worth 500 pesos, or could read, write or speak English or Spanish,” such qualifications precluded the participation of the Filipino masses. In fact, out of a population of nearly eight million, only 104,966 registered and only 98,251 or 1.41 % of the population voted. The result of the elections justified the expectations of the Americans and the illustrados or the Filipino elites. Among the 80 new assemblymen, there were: 48 lawyers, four physicians, two journalists, six professors, six agriculturists, two pharmacists, several merchants, one priest, and the rest were landowners.

This profile of membership to the Assembly ensured the presence of some sort of educational quality to the legislature, although it was elitist in orientation. With the passage of the Jones Law in 1916 that provided for an elective bicameral legislature, the Philippine Commission, which had played the role of the Upper Legislative chamber since the elections in 1907, gave way to the Senate in 1916 as the Philippine Legislature came into existence. Thus, Quezon, who was the majority floor leader of the Assembly and then resident commissioner of the Philippines, was elected Senate President and was suddenly in a position to challenge Speaker Osmeña for the enviable though informally known title of top political honcho of the country. But prior to the 1922 elections, the Nacionalista Party had split into the Uni-personalistas of Osmeña and the Collectivistas led by Quezon, as both ran for the Senate. But in the ensuing struggle for the Senate presidency, Quezon won. There was then a contest between Roxas and Recto for the vacant position of Speaker of the House. Osmeña was asked by the Partido Democrata to support Recto for the speakership in exchange for the party’s support of Osmeña for the Senate presidency.  Osmeña refused, but instead supported Manuel Roxas who was Quezon’s candidate for speaker of the House. In return for this Osmeña move, he was elected Senate President Pro-tempore. Thus, were the political roles of Quezon and Osmeña reversed, with the former now being recognized as the nation’s top politician.⁴

Education under the Americans

Judging from the tenor of the reports of the American educational officials about the prevailing situation with regard to education in the country, it can be deduced that unlike the dissimulation engaged in by political authorities, the actions of the former were straightforward and based on an objective assessment of these conditions.

The 1901 report, for example, underscores the fact that in the Spanish-era schools, “education in Christian doctrine is placed before reading and writing, and, if the natives are to be believed, in many of the more remote districts instruction began and ended with this subject and was imparted in the local native dialect at that”.⁵

The report further stated:⁶

           

            Instruction in geography was extremely superficial. As a rule no maps or charts were available, and such information as was imparted orally was left in the memory of the pupil, unaided by any graphic method of presentation.

           

            The only history ever taught was that of Spain, and that under conventional censorship. The history of other nations was a closed volume to the average Filipino. Vocal music was not taught, and the instruction in practical agriculture, where given, was a sorry farce.

As a result, the average provinciano, especially if he lived in any of the more remote areas of the archipelago, was reduced to the attainment of basic literacy and little else besides.

It is to the credit of the American military authorities that in spite of the continuing armed clashes between them and the Pulahanes led by the Tabal brothers in Cebu, they obstinately refused to be diverted from their assigned task of establishing a functioning public school system in the country, including the province of Cebu, where the Pulahanes staged their most sanguinary attacks.

Col. E. J. McClernand, the commanding officer of the Forty-fourth Infantry stationed in Cebu, and the military Chaplain J. H. Sutherland, reported: “In the early stages of the assistance to be given by the general government of the islands it is thought a few prominent towns only should be considered, and the benefits extended as experience is gained, where close supervision can be exercised!”⁷

Col. McClernand’s report enumerated the towns which he had selected to serve as exemplars to the rest of the municipalities in the province: Bogo, Danao, Cebu (the city), Naga, Carcar, Argao, Dumanjug, and Balamban.

The report further recommended that one English teacher be sent to the aforementioned towns, except Cebu, which needed five.

The same report also suggested that the salaries of both male and female teachers be increased, without regard for gender. Thus, the new salary rates were pegged at 25, 30, and 40 pesos per month, except for those teaching in Cebu and Argao, who were to be given much higher salaries. These were certainly more generous than the Spanish-era 10 to 20 pesos per month as the average for male teachers, and from 2 ½ to 20 pesos per month for female teachers.⁸

Chaplain Sutherland stressed that “the first thing necessary to wake these schools up is to pay the teachers a salary that emphasizes the importance of their positions.”⁹

In spite of their precarious position, the military officers in the province did just that; furthermore, instead of the Spanish-era requirement of two schools segregated according to gender in every municipality, the Americans proceeded to establish at least one co-educational school in every barrio of each municipality.

A comprehensive listing of the Filipino and American teachers throughout the country from 1901 to 1906 includes six assigned to Balamban: Jose Alonzo, Carmelino Bahena, Lloyd E. Bement, Francisco Fernandez, Walter H. Lackey, and Jose Rodriguez. Except for Bahena, a grade II teacher, the other Filipino teachers were simply noted as having been assigned at the Balamban Central School. Two Americans, part of the large peaceful army of Thomasites who descended upon the Philippines, were also among the teachers in Balamban. One of them, Walter H. Lackey, handled the aspirante class.¹⁰

Aspirantes were young men and women who wanted to become full-fledged teachers. Some of them were already holding jobs such as clerical positions, but wanted to improve their lot, especially with the attractive salaries being given to teachers and the new democratic attitudes displayed by the American mentors. Many of them were already well-educated, and they attended the aspirante class to further learn new ways of teaching elementary school pupils. They also assisted the regular teachers, especially if the classes happened to be large.

On the other hand, Mr. Bement was designated as Supervising Teacher in the Central School in Balamban. This was the arrangement agreed upon in Manila. Since there were few American teachers, the government was forced to hire native teachers, even if the latter’s English was far from perfect, and their teaching methods were still reflective of the training they had received from their Spanish mentors. American supervising teachers were therefore deemed necessary to oversee the work done by the local teachers.

The abovementioned facts, as reported in American documents such as the Report of the Secretary of War, seem to contradict the statements of town historian Romulus Gerali Cabahug, who maintains that the first public school in Poblacion was established in 1911, on a lot donated by Gen. Emilio Veredeflor, or some ten years after the Americans reported the establishment of their public school in Balamban.

Moreover, since Gen. Verdeflor was killed in action against American troops in 1900, he could not have made the donation himself. Probably it was his wife or one of his sons who formally turned over the lot to the municipal government.

Cabahug maintains that the first principal teacher of the public school in Balamban was a certain Mr. Jack, an American, who lived in the house of Capitan Pascual Narvios in barangay Baliwagan. Going over the list of municipal alcaldes, however, one finds the name of Filomeno, not Pascual, Narvios, whose term was from 1909-1911.¹¹ If Balamban already had an American-organized public school in 1901, Mr. Jack could not have been its first principal. It would be Mr. Lloyd Bement.¹²

Cabahug also mentions a John Harstein, reputed to be the first school supervisor in Balamban, who married a Balamban resident, Eustaquia Alternado. They lived in Sto. Niño, Barangay Sta. Cruz, in a house which is presently owned by the family of the late Mayor Socrates Y. Gonzalez.¹³

Cabahug notes that Mr. Harstein was followed later by Mr. Elmer Hall and Mr. Hammer. After them, Filipinos manned the public school. They were identified as a Mr. Verde; Mr. Nicanor Atillo, Mr. Porferio Miel, Mr. Jose Pañares, Mr. Ananias Lazaga, Mr. Ramon Dakay, Mr. Hilario Las Piñas, Mr. Mariano Almirante, Mr. Vicente Gallardo, Mr. Andres Sincero, Mr. Camilo Aliño, Mr. Ernesto Ortiz, Mr. Climaco Villanueva, Mr. Esteban Ypil, Mr. Emiliano Demetria, Mr. Simeon Dumdum Sr., Mr. Dalmacio Atamosa, Mr. Fredy T. Matela and Mr. Timoteo Padilla.¹⁴ Many of these men later came to assume high supervisory positions in the public school system, with one of them, Mr. Camilo Aliño, becoming a president of a state college, Cebu Normal College.

During the early years of the American era, the pupils were merely housed in rooms in one of the large ilustrado homes in the town. But due to the bill filed by Senator Isauro Gabaldon, a more durable and permanent schoolhouse was constructed. This was the Gabaldon building built in 1916.¹⁵

Secondary Schooling

The Balamban Institute was the only school on the west coast offering secondary education before World War II. This school was founded by Judge Abdon Gonzalez, eldest son of the martyred Capitan Primo Gonzalez. Judge Gonzalez was also the first director of the school.¹⁶

Initially, the Balamban Institute held classes in the house of Placido Flores in the poblacion, which was rented by Judge Gonzalez. After several years of operation, however, the school was in danger of being closed due to funding problems.¹⁷

The school was saved when a native son of Balamban, Dr. Hilario Camino Moncado, who had amassed a fortune in the United States, visited his home town and was informed of the predicament of the school. He immediately donated Php.4,000.00 to keep the school afloat. This was some time in 1931.¹⁸

The 1930’s

In the 1931 elections, a scion of another propertied family, Felipe Pilapil, distant kin of the Sanchezes, won the elections, unseating Melquiades. It was a signal for the return of Dominador Sanchez to the political center stage of Balamban. 

In 1934, the last year of the term of Felipe Pilapil, a native of Liloan who had made Balamban his second home, as municipal president was considered as the penultimate year of direct American rule of the archipelago before its status was changed to that of a Commonwealth, when the Balambanganons, like the other Filipinos in other towns, began to cotton to American democratic governance.  

When the Philippine Commonwealth settled down to tackle the task of governance under the combined leadership of President Quezon and Vice President Osmeña, Balamban was also under the leadership of Dominador C. Sanchez who won over then incumbent Felipe Pilapil in the 1934 elections.¹⁹ Dominador Sanchez challenged Felipe Pilapil for the town’s presidency. He won handily and became the fifth elected municipal president.

The basic notions of democracy that were introduced by the Americans to the country did not affect the nationalistic sensibilities of the average Filipino. When talks of freedom and independence seeped into the consciousness of the Balambanganon, many of them somehow welcomed it as an opportunity to improve their lot in life.

Balamban at this time had suddenly grown deeply aware of the developing political milieu in the town. There was, then, some kind of elemental acceptance by the people of the inevitability of American presence in Balamban, and what possible effects this presence would bring to the people in terms of improvements in their lives, in the areas of education, livelihood, and economic development. To this extent, the average inhabitant of Balamban cottoned to the Americans, in some ways no longer considering them as colonial superiors, but rather as benefactors out to help them improve their lives.

This unquestioned acceptance by the people of Balamban of the new colonizers and the American way of life could be credited to the new rulers’ vigorous promotion of a universal public school system.

In the local elections of 1940, Dominador Sanchez ran for re-election but lost to a neophyte politician, Santos Migallos, the first non-elite elected official of Balamban, and the town’s first lawyer.

Santos Migallos was a man born to lower middle level social stock, he was the first one to breach the elitist social barrier of education, although not the barrier of material possessions and properties. The inhabitants of Barangay Aliwanay were generally fisherfolk, many of whom acquired a measure of material affluence through fishing as a source of livelihood. Though essentially of poor, peasant beginnings, by sheer determination and industry, Santos Migallos finished high school, and went through college, choosing law, and became the first professional of Balamban, as well as the first politician of peasant beginnings. His feat did not escape unnoticed by the town’s inhabitants. To the poor, he was a role model of sorts, a triumph of poverty over adversity, for it was difficult on the part of the poor to imagine someone being able to cross the barrier of name and property to become a respected professional which no other family, particularly from among the average Balambanganon, had been able until then to accomplish. While the members of the town’s elite families accorded him due respect and recognition, one could note then that he was not considered as one of them. But on hindsight, it should be said that the ranks of the town’s elite did not flaunt their elitist station in the local milieu. While the average town folk looked at them with deference simply because the Sanchezes, Pilapils, Gonzalezes, Narvioses, and Paulins were family names in whose hands power and influence were laid by the Spaniards because of material possessions, they did not impose the status on the people. Indeed, the same families have taken turns leading and dominating the town across the years as families of affluence, but with the infusion now of education and managerial skills among the succeeding generation, to the benefit and good fortune of the town.¹⁹

However, it was unfortunate that in the case of Santos Migallos, he was municipal president of Balamban for only a year, since on December 8, 1941 (Philippine time), Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, and World War II began.  But Migallos’ influence in the town, however, did not end with the Japanese-American War. His assimilation to the town’s elite was formalized in the hills during the war when, as a guerrilla officer, he was assigned to the office of the Judge Advocate. His wife, Rizalina Avila Migallos, who later became a member of the faculty of the Cebu Normal School, had joined him in the hills. She was responsible for organizing the Balamban Ladies Loyalty League (BL3), which played an important role in the guerrilla organization.²⁰ One of the interesting sidelights of World War II in Cebu involved these same ladies, as narrated by Cebuano war historian Col. Manuel Segura.²¹

It was said that on January 20, 1945, a young Vought Corsair pilot crash landed in an airstrip in Tuburan, in Northern Cebu which had been used as an emergency landing field before the war. The Japanese had seized it in the early years of the conflict, but it had been retaken by the Cebuano guerrillas only two weeks previously, and the enemy dispersed. It was therefore restored to its original function.

They were met by members of the Balamban Ladies Loyalty League organized by Mrs. Migallos.

The Migallos couple brought along with them to the guerrilla camp their only son, Santos Migallos Jr., who was already in his early teens. Thus, in a sense, the whole Migallos family was involved in the guerrilla movement that earned them the respect of the townfolk, and elevated them to the level of Balamban’s social elite.

The “Martir”

During the establishment of a new church a tradition known as “martir” had been practiced. The martir usually took place on Good Fridays and was started in the years before the Second World War around the 1920’s by a man named Octavio Ramos. In the said tradition, a certain man would play the role of the martir (in reference to Jesus Christ) who, traditionally, would hide in the interior of Barangay Prenza. He would be arrested by the “Hudeyos” (men wearing Roman soldiers’ costumes) and then crowned with thorny vines while his feet would be tied with chain. He by then would be paraded through the streets of the town. The martir would usually stop before each house where the “Pasion” (Passion of Christ) would be sung and would lie on the ground whipped by the “Hudeyos” with banana palms. Then one of the “Hudeyos” would slash his back with a sipol or knife.

The house-owner would then offer to the martir a kulabu, which consists of a mixture of tuba (coconut wine) or bahal (coconut wine almost as sour as vinegar) and fresh egg. After drinking, the martir resumes walking, while whipping himself on the back with bolillos, a bundle consisting of 13 small branches of a guava tree, or bamboo, tied with lambo (twine) or rope. This penitencia (penance) would end at in Tumoy, in Barangay Aliwanay, where he would take a bath in a stream. ²²

The Church in Balamban during the American Era

The following is a list of the parish priests who were assigned to the Balamban Parish since 1875 up to the Second World War: ²³

Rev. Fr. Benito Ramiro                        1875 – 1909
Rev. Fr. Ismael Paras                          1909 – 1910
Rev. Fr. Francisco Blanco                   1910 – 1912
Rev. Fr. Crescente Pilapil                   1912 – 1913
Rev. Fr. Mariano Sarmiento                1913 – 1914
Rev. Fr. Tomas Borces                        1914
Rev. Fr. Mariano Sarmiento                1914 – 1917
Rev. Fr. Tomas Borces                        1917 – 1918
Rev. Fr. Gregorio Reynes                    1918 – 1925
Rev. Fr. Tomas Borces                        1925 – 1944
Rev. Fr. Leonardo Arriba                     1944 – 1945
Rev. Fr. Jose Alojipan                          1945 – 1953
Rev. Fr. Luis A. Ybanez                        1953 – 1976
Rev. Fr. Constantino Batoctoy             1976 – 1979
Rev. Fr. Manuel Montegrande              1979 – 1987
Rev. Fr. Benjamin M. Lepatan              1987 – 1996
Rev. Fr. Nestor C. Montecillo                1996 – 2003
Rev. Fr. Isidro M. Ullamot                      2003 – 2009
Rev. Fr. Raul Gallego                             2009 -- 2011  

Although the parish was established in 1857, records show that in 1875 Rev. Fr. Benito Ramiro was appointed “Cura Parroco Propietario”, pointing to the fact that Balamban was already an established settlement at that time.

 

¹In Cabahug’s list, he did not appear as one of the municipal presidents of Balamban. However, he appeared as the municipal president of Balamban in the 1901 Report of the Philippine Commission, 151-152 which is very conclusive that he was in fact the first municipal president of the then known “Balambang”. Hence, correction of the said list including dates has been done.

²Renato Constantino, The Philippines: A Past Revisited.

³This is based on the correction done on Cabahug’s list of municipal presidents and mayors of Balamban.

²Constantino.

⁵Report of the Secretary of War, p. 29.

⁶Ibid., p. 30.

⁷Ibid., p. 5.

⁸Ibid., p. 51.

⁹Ibid., p. 52.

¹⁰Filipinos and Americans in the Philippine Bureau of Education, (1901-1906), pp. 2, 4, 6, 22, 33, 49.

¹¹Cabahug, p. 13

¹²Filipinos and Americans…, p. 6.

¹³Cabahug, p. 14.

¹⁴Ibid., pp. 45-46.

¹⁵Ibid., p. 46.

¹⁶Ibid.,

¹⁷Ibid., p. 47

¹⁸Ibid., p. 48

¹⁹Ibid., p. 49

²⁰Manuel F. Segura, Tabunan: The Untold Exploits of the Famed Cebu Guerillas in World War II, p. 262.

²¹Ibid., pp. 262-263.

²²

²³Cabahug

²⁴Simeon Paulin, respondent.